The Madhya Pradesh High Court has called for a reduction in the age of sexual consent from 18 to 16 years, citing concerns about the “injustice” faced by adolescent boys. The court argued that the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, which raised the age of consent, has disrupted the fabric of society.
The plea that prompted this request involved a 23-year-old man who was accused of raping a minor girl. As per the FIR, the incident took place when the victim visited the accused for coaching and was offered a drink that rendered her unconscious. The accused then allegedly raped her and made a video of the sexual act. As per the complainant, the accused raped the minor multiple times, blackmailing her using the video.
The man faced charges under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, and the Information Technology (IT) Act.
However, on June 27, Justice Deepak Kumar Agarwal of the High Court issued an order quashing the FIR in the the case. “Generally, girls and boys of adolescents age develop friendship and after that, due to attraction make physical relationship. But, due to this rider, boy is treated like a criminal in the society,” the court said.
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“Today, most of criminal cases in which the prosecutrix is under 18 years of age, due to aforesaid anomaly, injustice is going on with adolescent boys. Thus, I request Government of India to think over the matter for reducing the age of prosecutrix from 18 to 16 years as earlier before amendments so that injustice should be redressed,” the court further observed.
“Nowadays, every male or female near the age of 14 years due to social media awareness and easily accessible internet connectivity is getting puberty in early age. Owing to this, female and male child are getting attraction and these attractions are resulting into physical relationship with consent. In these cases, male persons are not at all criminal. It is only a matter of age when they come into contact with female and develop physical relationship,” the court said.
During the proceedings, the petitioner’s counsel highlighted that there was a 7-month delay in registering the FIR. “Besides this, if any intercourse had been done, the same was with her consent, there was no force involved in it,” they argued.
In response, the lawyer representing the state acknowledged the delayed registration of the FIR but pointed out that the victim was a minor at the time of the incident.